


do me no good (not like im falling in love)

by WanderingCreep



Series: an enemy has been slain [1]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Covens, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Familiars, M/M, Minor Character Death, Revenge, Thieves Guild, Witches, Wizards, missing body parts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:35:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8367331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingCreep/pseuds/WanderingCreep
Summary: "What kind of thief couldn’t steal from a simple monster cave? This was supposed to be child’s play; a toddler could do it! For someone who had once been a high-ranking member of the Thief Guild, this was no problem; he was skilled enough to swipe the shirt off a man’s back if he really wanted to.So why was it that he found himself strung up by his own bootstraps in some stinky cellar dug out in the side of a mountain in the middle of the woods? It’d started out simple enough: get inside the hideout, loot the place, kill the supposed monster that was rumored to live there. Simple. Mission accomplished.But no.Things just had to be complicated."





	1. do me no good

**Author's Note:**

> just thought i'd write something different for a change. i wanted to play dungeons and dragons today.

do me no good (not like im falling in love)

 

 

 

Dean growled, trying to twist his body in a way that would keep at least some, if not all, the blood in his body from rushing straight to his head.

This was fucking ridiculous.

What kind of thief couldn’t steal from a simple monster cave? This was supposed to be child’s play; a toddler could do it! For someone who had once been a high-ranking member of the Thief Guild, this was no problem; he was skilled enough to swipe the shirt off a man’s back if he really wanted to.

So why was it that he found himself strung up by his own bootstraps in some stinky cellar dug out in the side of a mountain in the middle of the woods? It’d started out simple enough: get inside the hideout, loot the place, kill the supposed monster that was rumored to live there. Simple. Mission accomplished.

But no.

Things just had to be complicated.

The minute he sets foot into the cellar, he has all of two seconds to get his bearings of the place around him before he’s knocked into a hard packed dirt wall hard enough to see stars. When he finally clears his head, he’s hanging upside down by one leg, the other just dangling uselessly and throbbing with a dull pain every time he tries to move it. Must’ve twisted the knee weird when he hit the wall.

He’s tried to reach the knife in his boot, but whatever is tied around his ankle keeping him in the air is tied exactly around the hidden pocket where the weapon is sheathed. Tugging as hard as he could didn’t help, and even if he could’ve reached the knife, he had a feeling that a simple blade wouldn’t have been enough to do the trick.

Whatever was holding him there was, he was fairly certain, dangerous.

And very much alive.

Angering it might actually be a worse mistake than trying to talk his way out of the situation. So Dean waits, waits for the thing’s master or whatever to come and investigate, because there is no way in hell that this isn’t a magical creature or something who had someone to care for it; that’s just how things like that worked.

He waits for what feels like hours until the cellar starts to feel alive and warm with the presence of another being, and the hair stands up on Dean’s head. He gets the feeling of being watched, immediately swivels as best he can to see whose eyes he feels on him.

“Who is this?” comes a voice from somewhere in the cellar. It doesn’t sound condescending or wicked or anything. It also doesn’t sound like the voice of a monster said to haunt these woods. It sounds like a human, a sleepy human, no less. Sure enough, a human does materialize out of another room in the cellar. Weird, Dean thought there’d only been one room in the entire place.

He pads forward, still dragging the heel of his palm into his eyes trying to wake himself up. Barefoot and barechested, he looks like a normal man, nothing like the ‘monster’ described by the locals. Where was the fur, the fangs? The red eyes?

He just looked like a guy who’d just been woken up from a nap and was quite annoyed to have done so.

When he looks at Dean, he doesn’t look at all surprised. He just looks kind of bored, kind of disappointed like he’d been expecting someone else, someone better.

“Oh. A thief. From the Guild I’m guessing?” he says, sounding tired. He can’t shake that bored drawl, can he?

Dean blinks. “You…aren’t a monster.”

The guy stares at him blankly, looking vaguely unimpressed. “Depends on your perspective. If I figure out who you are, and I think I have, I could be the monster of your worst nightmares,” he says with a misleadingly friendly looking smile.

“Great,” says Dean.

“A thief from the Guild,” murmurs the guy, looking Dean over lazily. “Not a very good one from the looks of it, wandering into a spell trap and all. Guess that can’t be helped, you thieves always did have tunnel vision; never looking out for anything but your next score.”

Dean’s jaw ticks. “Okay, first of all, fuck you,” he says, clearly taking offense to being scrutinized by some fluffy haired looking guy who lived in a fucking mountain like some sort of troll. “And second of all, I’m not some fucking amateur; I just thought I was going up against some dumb animal was all. Not every day you expect to find some backwards weirdo holed up in the dirt like a mole.”

The guy gives him a disbelieving look. “Hm. Okay, well. Suppose I just kill you?”

Whoa, that escalated quickly.

“What? Why?” says Dean. “I didn’t even get a chance to steal anything before your magic fucking whatever-this-is got the jump on me.”

The guy shrugs. “Can’t leave any witnesses. You might go back and squeal to your Guildmaster, and I’m not that excited to have a war on my doorstep.”

Dean snorts. “’A war’? As in, one guy against the entirety of the Guild’s troops? Yeah, _okay_. More like a ‘mild disturbance’. At _best_.”

“You’re pretty mouthy for someone who’s about to bite it. Out of curiosity, how did you expect to get any of this stuff to work if you didn’t know the right spells? Let alone leave the boundaries without it getting upset and swallowing up everything in a twenty mile radius?” asks the guy.

Dean raises a bewildered eyebrow. “What? The spell…what?”

 Now it’s the guy’s turn to look confused. “You didn’t know that? You…don’t know what this is?” he gestures to the room around him.

“Uh, no. I just came here looking to loot a monster hoard.”

The guy blinks, staring at Dean as if in a trance. He stares for so long that Dean wonders if he’d totally broken his train of coherent thought.

Then he says, “You’re not…you’re telling the truth?”

“Who even are you?” asks Dean. “I was expecting a big fuzzy monster. Maybe a dragon by the way the people in town described your hoarding habits.”

The guy narrows his eyes. “Let him go, Roman.”

Dean looks at him quizzically- “ _Roman? Who_ -“- and then the tight sensation around his ankle slips loose, and the ground comes rushing up to meet Dean’s face at a breakneck speed.

Dean cracks an eye open through the haze of pain at being dropped on his _fucking head_ , just in time to see a strange tornado of what looked like symbols and drawings race overhead and settle over the guy’s shoulder. Suddenly there’s two people; the guy, and a hulking behemoth of what looks like a man with long dark vines of hair covering his face and eyes like two silver moons peering out from them like some dangerous creature.

“What…”

“I’ll be okay, Roman. Go set another spell mine by the door,” says the guy without taking his eyes off of Dean. Silently, the silver-eyed giant disappears, gliding away like a shadow leaving only hushed whispers in his wake.

“What the fuck…”murmurs Dean in disbelief at the retreating flurry of shadows.

“What are you doing here?” asks the guy, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you were a Guild thief.”

“I didn’t say that,” said Dean, getting to his feet, minding his throbbing left leg. “I mean, I’m not saying I’m not a Guild thief; I was. But not anymore. Freelancer, these days.”

The guy doesn’t look like he believes him. “So you just decided to take a walk in the woods and just so happened to find where I live?”

Dean shrugs, kinda wishes the guy would out a shirt on. Now that he can see him without the dizziness of all the blood rushing to his head, it’s kind of distracting. “Got hired by the people in town. Wanted me to kill the ‘monster’ in the woods. Looting the place is a side job.”

“So you’re a hired mercenary too?” the guy deadpans.

“If the coin requires it.”

“Hm,” the guy hums, finally looking away from Dean and towards the dirt corridor that led to the cellar door. “I’d suggest you forget about the job the townspeople gave you. You’re in over your head. Here,” he rakes his hand through the right side of his hair, and its then that Dean notices that the hair is golden, almost glowing like the precious metal itself. A few strands come loose in the man’s hand and he closes his fist tight around them. When he opens his hands again, all that’s left is a fine gold dust, shimmering and warm slightly from the guy’s palms.

Dean stares at it as the guy grabs his hand and empties the dust into Dean’s open palm. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “Is this real?”

“Yeah,” the guy sighs exasperatedly. “That should be more than what the townspeople are paying you. Now go away.”

Dean squawks. How can this guy just give him his hair, turn it into gold and then tell him to go away? There are way too many things to say, too many questions to ask. What the fuck was this? What the fuck was he?

“Are you a wizard or something?” Dean asks.

“I literally just paid you to go away, why are you still here?”

“No. The monster in the woods is just some guy who can turn hair into gold? Are you serious?” presses Dean.

“Yes, and if you don’t get out of here right now, things are going to get very awful for you,” says the guy. “Now leave before I have you removed.”

Dean is on the verge of saying something else when suddenly the walls around him begin to shake.

He immediately looks to the guy, only to find him looking calmly on, if not a bit annoyed at the inconvenience. Then the walls cave in, loose dirt and rock folding themselves around Dean and blotting out the rest of the world inside the cellar. It begins to push, debris piling up and surging towards the surface.

Then Dean is back on the outside again, lying on the grass in the sunlight, listening as the earth shakes around him. When he sits up, he can see the ground settling back into place, first raw dirt, then a blanket of grass growing over it and finally, where a half boarded up hole in the side of the mountain had been, there was now just an innocent looking ring of mushrooms.

It was like there had never been a wizard living there in the first place.

 

 

 

Dean twists the little vial between his thumb and forefinger, holds it up to the sunlight. The gold dust inside of it shined back, illuminated by the sunlight dappling between the trees.

It had been two weeks since he’d gotten the dust from the wizard in the mountain. He hadn’t seen or heard from the guy since then, though the townspeople were still being plagued by his being there all the same. Dean never saw him; he was always gone before he could ever get to the place in question. Just the day before, he’d been in the mayor’s house. From what Dean had heard, he’d stolen an expensive and exceptionally crafted sword from the mayor’s personal armory, as well as the mayor’s pet dog.

Dean didn’t really know what to say about that.

So now, here he was, walking through the forest, deciding whether or not he really wanted to push his luck and look for the wizard again or just abandon the town and this job altogether. He couldn’t live to regret dropping this job if the wizard sicced his silver-eyed demon on him again.

Dean drops the vial of dust, lets it settle back on his chest from the cord around his neck. He sighs. What were the odds that he was even going to find this guy again? He’d moved the door from where it had been before; what was to say he was even still living in the mountain anymore? Maybe he’d moved to a new spot since Dean had found him.

Then he heard it.

Splashing coming from further inside the woods. Curiosity driving his feet forward, Dean wandered towards the sound of water, figuring it was only a deer or a wolf or something. But just maybe…

The smell of wet mud and the clear earthy scent of water grows closer as he walks, and vaguely, he thinks of mermaids. Hell, if a wizard could exist, maybe a mermaid could too.

Dean sees the sunlight glinting off the surface of the river before he sees anything else. A thought pops in his head that maybe he should stop and rest here, have a drink, try to figure out a game plan before he just walked around here until nightfall like an idiot, and then it occurs to him that the splashing has stopped.

Immediately on high alert, Dean steps closer and closer to the shore, stopping just short of the cover of trees. For a moment, he doesn’t see anything in the water, only the reflection of the trees and the clear blue skies. Then he sees a flash of gold.

The wizard is floating along with the gentle tug of the current, his hair, both dark and gold, fanning out like an off-colored halo. His eyes are closed; Dean can see it by stretching closer to the shore, trying not to fall in, but still wanting to see.

The guy has tan skin, the color of autumn, or what Dean imagines autumn would look like in human form; like he has sunbeams trapped underneath his skin, behind his eyes and under his nails. He’s…well, he’s beautiful. And not just in the way girls were beautiful. He was beautiful the way lightning storms were beautiful. Like how fire, blazing high and licking with red tongues at the night sky was beautiful. It was uncontained, unrestrained, unapologetic. He looks oblivious. Peaceful.

It would be so easy to kill him. Just jump in and stab him in the heart, and then this job would be done with. He could move on with a clear conscience knowing that his reputation hadn’t been tarnished by an unfinished job.

Right?

It doesn’t matter because Dean never gets the chance to even grab a weapon from his belt.

“If you really wanted to kill me, you’d have done it already,” said the wizard from the water. Dean nearly jumps out of his skin; the wizard’s eyes were still closed. How did he know he was there?

“How’d you know someone was watching you?” he asks, trying to sound cool and confident.

The wizard opens his eyes then, lets them fall on Dean standing by the trees. “Oh,” he says, sounding flat and a little bored to find Dean standing there, “it’s you. I’m a mage of the wild things. There’s nothing in these woods that I don’t sense.”

Dean doesn’t ask what that means and the wizard doesn’t elaborate. Instead he lets himself drift closer to shore and then rises from the water. He walks past Dean, not seeming to mind that he could see every inch of him now, and climbs a rocky outlay to grab his clothes that had been sitting there. He lets his feet hang over the edge as he takes a towel to his hair, drying it in segments to get every inch of his head dry. On a whim and sensing no danger in the other’s actions, Dean invites himself on the rocky outlay and plops down beside him, leaving just enough space between them in case he needed to defend himself.

Though he wasn’t sure how well a knife would fare against a wizard.

“You sensed me coming?” Dean says.

“Thought you were an animal at first. Not totally off the mark, but close enough,” the wizard smirks.

Dean glares at him. The bastard thinks he’s being cute.

“Mage of wild things, huh?” Dean echoes. “Interesting name.”

The guy shrugs. “Just means I’m a glorified zookeeper. ‘Beastmaster’ if you’re feeling particularly fancy. The name’s just Seth, though.”

Finally, a name to the face.

“Dean,” says Dean simply in way of introductions. “Thief of…anything not bolted down, I guess.”

Seth snorts at that.

“’Seth’, huh?” Dean murmurs, staring at the side of the wizard’s head. “Think I like ‘mage of wild things’ better. Sounds more grandiose and interesting. Like, ‘I killed the mage of wild things and cut out his heart.’ That’ll definitely get more attention.”

Seth sighs, moving to the other side of his head with the towel. “I told you, if you wanted to kill me, you would’ve done it by now. You’ve missed your chance.”

“What’s to say I couldn’t just jam a knife into your ribcage right now?” says Dean dangerously. Seth doesn’t even bat an eye.

“I’m awake now,” he says simply. “You should’ve offed me while I was dozing off a while ago.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Dozing? What’s the matter with you? A wizard doesn’t doze. The ‘mage of wild things’ does not doze.”

Seth snorts. “How would you know? You didn’t even know what that was until just now.”

“Makes you sound less like a threat. More human.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” asks Seth. “What, can’t kill a human?”

“Oh, I’ve killed humans,” says Dean, trailing off quietly. “Plenty of humans.”

Seth looks at him then, laying the towel in his lap. Dean decides not to return the gaze, focuses on the trees in front of them.

He changes the subject.

“I thought I told you to give up on this job,” he says, sounding more like the annoyed man that Dean had first met. “You’re in over your head. I don’t care how many people you’ve killed; you’ve never killed a mage before.”

“Never too late to start,” mumbles Dean.

Seth narrows his eyes. “I’m serious.”

Dean nods. “So am I.”

Seth sighed. “Look, I’m not even the bad guy. You wanna kill someone so badly? Stick a sword in that mayor’s throat. He’s the one those townspeople should be paying you to kill.”

“Look, I don’t ask questions, man,” says Dean. “So long as I get paid, I don’t care. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

Seth’s eyes are sharp on him. “To get the gold?”

“To stay free.”

Seth’s eyes stay on him for a long time, just watching. Then he smiles, laughs softly. Says, “Just like a wild thing.”

 

 

 

Seth dresses after he dries off in the sunlight.

Then he’s off and moving.

“So do you, like, protect these woods, or something?” asks Dean, trailing behind as he starts up the mountain. He’s following Seth, who is striding ahead in nothing but his pants, shirt tied around his waist along with a strange belt of coins that keeps tinkling softly with each step he takes.

“Not really,” says Seth distractedly, focusing more on scaling the mountain than talking to Dean. “I can move whenever I want.”

“So you just protect the animals and shit wherever you happen to be at the moment.”

“Pretty much. Why are you still following me?”

“I think I still want to kill you. Maybe,” says Dean.

“So, what, you’re just gonna hang around until you do?” says Seth. “I’m serious; you’re in over your head. Unless you’ve got a death wish, I’d suggest you keep moving.”

“You know, you won’t always have that shadowy demon thing around to watch your back,” says Dean. “And when that happens, I’ll gladly finish the job and get paid.”

Seth doesn’t turn to look at him. “Roman’s not a demon; he’s a familiar. And he’s not what you should be afraid of.”

“Then what should I be afraid of?” says Dean, knowing he might be stepping on dangerous ground, but continuing to do so anyway. But he’d met people more threatening, more depraved and violent than whatever Seth could claim to rival. He was hardly scared. More curious than anything. “A guy who can turn hair into gold? Someone who steals people’s _pets_? I’m shakin’.”

Seth stops abruptly and turns sharply. Immediately, a little voice in the back of Dean’s head whispers, ‘Oh, _shit_.’

Seth’s eyes aren’t glowing with some magical power, though. He isn’t engulfed in some weird ethereal flame or even doing anything remotely wizard-like. He’s just glaring like a normal human being.

But somehow, _that_ is more unnerving than his doing anything like an angry magical being.

Still, Dean smirks. “Touch a nerve?” he teases.

Seth glowers at him for a moment longer, then shakes his head. “Like I said: you’re in over your head. If you really wanna make coin, then stop goading me and help me kill the mayor. You’ll live longer that way.”

Then he turns and keeps walking. Dean can still see the tension in his shoulders.

“You keep saying that,” he says as they start moving again. He sees Seth shake his head and keep walking, not even bothering to turn around. “That ‘I’m in over my head’. That I’m in danger. Is that you? You’re the danger? I wanna see what you can do. I wanna see why they call you a monster.”

“You don’t.”

“Humor me.”

Seth stops again, turns around with his hands on his hips. “Dean, this isn’t something you can play with,” he says.

“Let me guess: ‘I’m in over my head’.”

“You are. You’ve never dealt with a magical creature before; that’s not something they teach at the Guild. And I know for fucking certain that you’ve never dealt with a mage. Especially not one like me.”

Dean whistles. “Wow. Egotist, much?”

“No, a warning. You don’t wanna know why they call me the monster in the woods, and if you’re lucky, you will never find out. So drop it,” Seth hisses.

Then they’re moving again.

Dean watches Seth walk for a moment, gaining some distance between them before he starts following again. Decides he won’t antagonize him any further. At least for now. It was kind of clear he’d become despondent anyway. God, he was like a bratty teenager.

Dean had met mages before, despite what Seth had said. True, he’d never engaged in combat with one, and he’d never actually seen one up close on a personal level, but he’d seen them in courts and guilds all over the world. They were obnoxious, egotistical things, always wanting to prove how much better they were than the rest of the population, how powerful they were, why they should be feared. Usually that meant flaunting their power, and Dean had seen enough displays of grandiose magic to know that most mages and wizards and witches were nothing but talk and pretty light shows, and those had been mages of ice and fire, of crystal and light and all sorts of things.

What was a mage of wild things supposed to display?

Communication with animals?

Transformation into a bear?

Up ahead, Seth stops at a stony nook in the elevated ground. Dean raises an eyebrow at it. There was no discernable opening that gave away a door or entrance to a cave, so what were they doing here?

Seth turns to him then and grabs his hand. Dean automatically bristles.

“What are you-“

“Just shut up and get down.”

Dean eyes Seth suspiciously, but kneels down on the forest floor with him amongst the leaves and grass, lets him press his palm into the wet underbrush next to Seth’s. At first nothing happens. Dean’s about to ask what the point of this is, when the sunlight dotting through the trees begins to glow brighter around them.

“What…”

It’s when the light forms a shape around them that Dean realizes it’s not sunlight. It traces a somewhat intricate pattern into the ground, shimmering like a reflection, and as quickly as it comes, the light is gone.

Seth lets go of Dean’s hand and crawls _inside_ the nook. Straight through solid rock.

Despite his limited magical knowledge, Dean knows what just happened, or at least what that phenomenon was. A spell circle. A real life spell circle.

Dean reaches out, expecting to feel cool, smooth stone beneath his fingertips and is mildly surprised to find that his hand disappears beyond the rock wall. Taking a deep breath, Dean forces the rest of him to follow suit, hoping to whatever god would listen that he wouldn’t get trapped in some fucking witch rock.

On the other side, it’s cool, and this time, the little hole looks like a house.

Or at least, kind of like someone’s room buried under piles of _stuff_.

Seth really was like a bratty teenager.

Hanging from the ceiling, which was made of wooden beams and rafters, were lanterns made of faceted colored glass with bronze trim. Slung over some rafters were animal pelts, skinned and smelling of earth. Ebony furniture speckled the room, a chair with a backboard intricately carved to look like a pill of skulls, a clawfoot table, some drawers overflowing with jars and bottles and pieces of loose parchment, a bookcase stacked with leatherbound books and the odd skull or large rock or crystal. There were kaleidoscopes and gyroscopes, twisting and turning in rhythm with their own individual beat. Rugs and tapestries hung on the walls and covered the floor, which was surprisingly made of polished white marble and obsidian. Music tinkled from somewhere in the place, if it could be called that. it was a mixture of instruments, more frantic sounding than soothing, wild and primitive.

Given some thought, Dean could see how all this chaos would suit someone called the mage of wild things.

Seth reappears from a hole in the wall wearing a black wool jersey with long sleeves, hair pulled back against the nape of his neck with a silver pin carved to look like a wolf with its tongue lolling out. He’s fiddling with something in his hands and looks marginally less tense when he looks up to find Dean standing there.

“You made it in. Good. Thought you’d wait too long and let the spell wear off.”

“What was that anyway? And why’d you need me for it?” asks Dean, watching as Seth wandered around the space absently.

“Temporarily disarmed the spell trap. Keeps intruder’s out. I just made it so that when you came in, it wouldn’t let Roman ragdoll you again,” explains Seth as he finally goes to lean against the clawfoot table. A little animal darts out from under it, and it takes Dean a moment to realize that it’s not a giant rat and just a tiny dog. It barks at Seth, who picks up a leather ball and tosses it into another part of the ‘house’.

Dean watches it chase after the ball. “Is that the mayor’s dog?”

“Yeah. Little guy saw me swipe the mayor’s stuff. Leave no witnesses and all of that,” says Seth.

“Bullshit. You just wanted a dog.”

“And? Look, I only let you in because I wanted to get you off my scent. I’ll pay you to kill the mayor of that town, got it? Then you have to leave me alone.”

Dean narrows his eyes. A thought occurs.

“Why don’t you just kill him yourself?” he asks. “You’re ‘the monster in the woods. Can’t you just…I don’t know…turn into a big fucking wolf and rip out his throat.”

Seth raises an eyebrow. “I thought you said you didn’t ask questions, so long as you get paid?”

Dean raises his hands in defense. “Fine, fine,” he relents. “Just makes more sense to me if the big, bad monster takes care of business. What kind of payment have you got in mind?”

“What do you want?”

“What do you got?”

Seth looks at him. Then he pushes off from the table and crosses the floor to Dean. It’s not until he’s nose to nose with him that Dean realizes vaguely that he has a few inches on the wizard. Seth braces his palms on Dean’s chest and tilts his head up.

Dean doesn’t realize he’s being kissed until it’s over.

His forehead tingles where Seth’s lips had been and he finds himself equal parts confused and equal parts disappointed.

Seth explains. “The mark of a magician, witch, wizard or otherwise is the most powerful gift they can bestow. The mark of a wizard of water would grant you a wealth of wisdom. A witch of light would give you eternal physical durability. A wizard of wild things will give you everything you ever wanted. You’ll be like the wind, free for the rest of your days; bow to no one, bend for nothing. They will never catch you, because you can’t catch the wind. Anything you want, it’s yours.”

“That’s why you kissed me?” asks Dean. “That’s my mark?”

“It has to be through skin contact. You break our deal, I break your face. Got it?”

Dean pushes aside the (totally unwanted) disappointment at not being kissed on the lips and grins.

“I haven’t even accepted this little counter-deal,” he says. “What makes you think I’ll take this job?”

Seth steps back. “You will.”

“How do you know?”

There’s a certain unnerving air about the smile Seth gives him then. “Because you’re a wild thing. There’s nothing you want more than freedom.”

 

 

 

The mayor of the Town of Kings is not a patient man.

He’s not a man of dying quickly either, it turns out.

“Decided to turn traitor,” he says through bloodstained teeth. “Hm?”

Dean shrugs, wipes the blood from his knife onto the carpet. “Was never on your side. Was never on his side. Just went wherever the money went. Can’t be a traitor if I’m neutral.”

The mayor laughs. “You keep telling yourself that, Ambrose.”

“I will. Always worked before, no sense in stopping now. Anything you want to say before I go?”

The mayor spits blood on the carpet, his elbow folding underneath him as his strength vanishes. “Yeah…tell that bastard of a son…that I’ll see him…in hell…”

 

 

 

Seth is throwing the ball out to the little dog when Dean comes back.

The ball disappears through the trees, and the little animal tears off after it, leaving Dean and Seth alone. Dean just stands there, watching as the dog runs through the grass and trees, as far as he can see him. Seth avoids eye contact too, leaning back against a tree, one hand shoved in his pocket.

The dog comes back.

Seth throws the ball.

They’re alone again.

“Son, huh?” says Dean finally.

Seth doesn’t need to ask him to elaborate. He knew this before Dean even spoke.

“Yeah.”

“Adopted?”

“May as well have been. Raised by a coven for most of my life anyway.”

Dean sighs, still avoids making eye contact. “Revenge, Seth? Really? After all this time?”

Seth smirks bitterly. “This coming from a man who steals and kills people for a living. You’re just as fucked up as I am. He made me a monster, Dean." Seth shrugs. "I just got tired of letting him get away with it.”

Dean doesn’t push him any farther. The tension is almost tight enough to coil up between them. He marks it down as yet another touchy subject in his ‘Things That Make Seth Moody’ list.

Instead, he says, “Been thinking…”

“Oh, really?”

Dean gives Seth a sideways glare. “How come you keep moving around?”

The dog comes back.

Seth throws the ball.

“Just don’t like being in the same place for long,” Seth says.

Dean nods. “Me either. Where do you wanna go next?”

Seth pauses. Blinks, looks over at Dean.

Dean looks back.

Seth returns his gaze to the trees, sets his jaw.

“I hear further down South is nice this time of year.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if there's interest i might do more.  
> i just really wanted to play dungeons and dragons guys.  
> hit me up here or here: neonflavored.tumblr.com/


	2. saw you were on your own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theirs is a love-hate relationship.

saw you were on your own (thought you might understand)

 

 

Seth has grown on Dean.

Not that he doubted he would ever grow to like the man in the first place, but he didn’t expect it to be so easy to like him. Seth is standoffish and stubborn, but, well, so was Dean. He was guarded to a point –especially on the subject of his abilities as a wizard of wild things and what that meant- but Dean wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to talk about his past either. So it was fair that there was a certain amount of civility that kept the other from intruding on any sensitive subjects.

Dean was still curious though.

Seth didn’t seem like the dangerous type, despite the obvious pain that he hid under his skin. It was volatile, like if Dean stepped over the wrong line, it just might lash out and swallow him up, bones and all.

But it was moments like this that Dean kind of forgot about that, and saw the better sides of Seth’s inner chaos. Dean is sitting in the middle of a field, surrounded by white grass and poppies like droplets of blood and rubies, watching Seth chase after the dog, which had been named Kevin, racing through the grasses with all the grace of a deer and the abandon of a summer breeze. His hair had come loose from its messy knot at the back of his head and was blowing through the wind after him.

Seth smiled often, laughed frequently, but Dean had never seen him so delightfully unhinged. Part of him wished that he would show him the other half, the part that wasn’t so delightful. Call it morbid curiosity. Kevin came rocketing in Dean’s direction then, Seth shooting like an arrow after him.

Seth slows when he nears, finally scooping up Kevin and sitting on the grass next to Dean, breathing hard.

“No wonder they call you the mage of wild things,” Dean says, grinning at him. “You act like it.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Dean thinks back to where the pair had resurfaced from Seth’s cellar-like room. Instead of the side of the mountain in the woods outside of the town, they’d emerged from the other side of a waterfall. Now sheltered by stone, the walls were no longer made of hard packed dirt. It smelled cool, wet, less like mud and more like the crisp scent of running water and plants. It reminded Dean of rain.

“You were raised by witches, right? How many of you were there?” Dean asks. That wasn’t too intrusive a question, he figures.

Seth ruffles Kevin’s fur, more preoccupied with him than Dean. “Six of us. They were all my mentors, but the one I remember most was a woman named Paige. She was a witch of wild things, so naturally we were most in sync,” says Seth, looking thoughtful.

“Then there was Becky; she was a witch of fire and storms. She and Paige got along really well, as you can imagine. Charlotte was a witch of light, but she was the scariest. I remember walking on eggshells when I was with her.” Seth laughs like it’s a fond memory.

“And then there was Bayley and Sasha, witches of dreams and the mind. Then me. I don’t know where they are now, or even if they’re still alive. Back when I was a kid, everyone called them the Horsewomen.”

Dean narrows his eyes in thought. That name sounded familiar.

“The Horsewomen? Wait…isn’t that the coven that singlehandedly led the troops in the Last Great War? The ones that created the High Council and overturned the monarchy? _Those_ Horsewomen?” says Dean, his words beginning to trip over each other slightly in his growing excitement.

Seth stared out at the field for a long time. Dean imagined that if he looked hard enough, he could see the gears turning in Seth’s head.

“Yeah,” Seth said eventually. “That’s the one.”

Dean looked at him carefully, sensing the imminent shutdown from Seth. Slowly, quietly, he says, “Sorry about Charlotte.”

Seth closes his eyes. A breeze pushes by, almost like it’s trying to will the tension out of Seth’s body. “It’s okay,” he replies eventually.

Somehow, Dean doubts that.

 

 

The town close by has a bounty out for witches and wizards.

They aren’t a very popular town, what with the popularity of magic these days, but not everyone and their uncle was expected to enjoy magic. They’re a tiny, devoutly religious town with more churches to their god than homes for their people, and only certain ‘men of divinity’ are allowed to be christened ‘witch hunters’. As such, many of the magical community avoids the town, giving it a wide berth like it’s a hotspot for the plague.

Seth knows that.

But does he care? Hell no.

And Dean can appreciate that. He always did like them stubborn.

“Any particular reason why we’re parked so close to a town that pretty much as a warrant out for your head on a spike?” Dean asks, sitting by the edge of the pool. His feet are dipped under the cool water lapping gently at his ankles, a welcome reprieve from the sun beating down on his shoulders. One of Seth’s towels is thrown over his head, hardly drying the dark blonde mess that was his hair.

Seth runs his hands through his wet hair, having just come up from under the water. “Why?” he says, in a voice that should _not_ be allowed, especially when Dean is sitting there drying in the sun from a bath in nothing but his trousers. Seth turns just enough for Dean to catch him looking up at him through dark eyelashes dotted with trembling water droplets and says smoothly, “You scared?”

The smug bastard.

Dean’s chest goes warm, and god damn it all, there is no reason for Seth to be _this_ attractive at the moment. He’s fucking gorgeous, and that’s not fair. Dean schools his face, trying to look unimpressed.

“I’m not the one who calls himself a wizard, dumbass,” he says.

Seth still has that smug grin on his face, not quite turning to meet Dean fully, and shrugs, turning back to the waterfall. “Even less of a reason for you to be freaking out. Don’t be a pussy; we’ll be fine. What; are you worried about me?”

Dean can practically hear him smiling, and suddenly he wants to a) swim up behind him and bury his face in his hair, which he knows smells like honey and oats because of the oil he uses in it every night, and b) kick up a wave to douse his smug ass with.

In the end, he decides to do neither because on one hand, he’s not too keen on starting a water fight with a wizard, and if he just ran up and sniffed Seth’s hair, he’d surely have some questions that needed to be answered, and he isn’t sure he’s ready to give those answers away just yet.

So, he simply says, “Are you going to hang around in the water all day? You probably look real ugly all wrinkled up, y’know.”

Seth brushes his hair away from his shoulders and twists the water from it. “I might. And I bet you know all about ugly, huh?”

Seth’s obvious jab goes right over Dean’s head. It isn’t the first time Dean has seen the tattoo running down Seth’s spine; he remembers the first time he’d seen it, when he’d followed Seth back to his hideout after finding him in the river. Dean didn’t recognize the language; it looked old, otherworldly. Something he had no business in.

“What’s with the ink?” he asks distractedly.

The tattoo disappears as Seth turns around to face him. “What?”

“Your tattoo. What language is that, looks ancient? Some witch thing?”

Seth hesitates. Just looking at him, you wouldn’t be able to tell, but Dean sees it in his eyes; the way he just sort of…stops…then in the blink of an eye, starts up again.

“It’s…” Seth begins, and Dean can hear the gears in his head turning, trying to come up with a way to explain without telling him something that would undoubtedly lead to more questions he didn’t want to answer. Seth shakes his head then.

“Uh, it doesn’t matter. Just an old saying.”

“Like what?”

Seth glares at him. “ _’Curiosity killed the fucking cat’_ ,” he deadpans.

Dean knows that voice. That’s the ‘end all, be all’ voice that Seth uses when Dean’s overstepped his bounds. He knows; he has his own. He toys with the idea of just going ahead and calling Seth out on the bullshit lie that he just told to shut Dean up, but something deep in his conscience is warning him that if he did, he might get more than he bargained for.

Dean was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid enough to bite off more than he could chew.

So he leaves Seth alone.

Roman brings him a towel once he’s done with his bath. Dean watches the dark golem of a creature as it appears on the poolside and whispers past, the towel flapping in the breeze as though being carried by a gust of wind, and settling itself around Seth’s shoulders.

He dries his hair with it, then climbs out of the water and dries his body.

He’s done talking.

 

 

Roman talks.

Well, kind of.

Dean has never heard the thing talk, but Seth seems to do enough talking for the both of them whenever he’s around. All Roman has to do in conversation is tilt his head, nod, or blink, and Seth somehow gets full commentary from the tiny gestures.

Maybe he doesn't need to talk. Maybe its because Roman has been following Seth around since he was a kid that he understands him so well. Seth tells him this while they watch Roman occupy himself with letting Kevin gnaw playfully on his fingers in the corner of the study.

“What exactly is Roman?” asks Dean from where he’s leaning against Seth’s desk. Seth is sitting behind it, one leg curled underneath him, scribbling into the pages of an old leatherbound book with an intensity and concentration that makes Dean think of surgery.

“A familiar. How much do you know about the lifestyles of magical creatures?” says Seth, without looking up from his book.

Admittedly, not much, but Dean says, “Eh. Enough. So, what, he’s like your magical pet, or something?”

Seth actually snorts. “Yeah, no. Try extension of myself. He’s the manifestation of everything that I am; all my memories, all my thoughts, all of my powers. We’re linked. I die, he dies.”

Dean frowns over at the dark giant, who is still letting Kevin chew on his fingers. “That’s depressing,” he murmurs.

“He’s been there since I was a kid,” says Seth in way of consolation, like that makes it better. “He knows the deal.”

“So, what, he looks after you until he can’t anymore and then just disappears? Talk about a bleak existence. He’s nothing but a glorified wet nurse.”

“Well, before you start an advocacy campaign for the ethics of familiars,” says Seth, finally looking up from whatever it was he was writing, “It’s not like I never gave him a choice. He showed up one day in the halls of the coven and never left my side after that.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “That’s hardly what I call a choice. You were probably just the first person to pay attention to him and he followed you around like a lost puppy.”

Seth sighs and gives Dean a look that says _‘tired, annoyed, trust me on this, okay, just this once’_. “Look, why don’t you ask him what he thinks about it, okay? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kinda preoccupied with something other than arguing with you about the ethics of my familiar.”

Dean furrows his brow. “It talks?”

“Yes, ‘ _he’_ talks,” sighs Seth, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world that Roman has a voice. “Anymore dumb questions?”

Dean glares at him, opens his mouth to say something smart, but Seth cuts him off.

“That was a rhetorical question. Go away.”

Dean complies, but he gives the table of stiff nudge with his foot beforehand, jostling Seth’s hand and undoubtedly fucking with his work.

Roman doesn’t even look up when Dean approaches. He’s probably too entranced with Kevin, who is _still_ using his long fingers as teething toys.

“Hey,” says Dean, for once in his life unsure of how to approach someone, “uh…Roman.”

“Don’t be nervous,” calls Seth from the desk, “he might attack you if he senses you’re nervous.”

Dean glares over his shoulder at him. “And you couldn’t tell me this beforehand, because….”

Seth snaps his fingers at him. “ _Focus_ ,” he says, as though he’s reading from some manuscript he already knows by heart. “Don’t take your eyes off him; he already thinks your easy prey.”

The bastard isn’t even looking up from his book the entire time he’s instructing.

“I really fucking hate you right now,” Dean growls.

“I’m trying to stop you from being eaten by my familiar,” says Seth coolly, like he could really care less if Roman just swallowed Dean whole, bones and all, right then and there. “And keep that anger; you’re looking less and less like dinner at the moment.”

Dean turns back to Roman, finds two silver eyes peering out at him from behind thick curtains of dark hair, outright staring at Dean, and inwardly cringes. It’s a little unnerving to be the focal point of such an otherworldly intensity. And the fact that Dean can’t see anything behind those eyes except fierce curiosity and growing hunger is a little striking too.

_Don’t be nervous. Don’t be nervous. He looks just like a normal guy. Kind of._

How had Seth managed to do this as a _little_ _kid_? Any other kid would’ve pissed themselves and run crying to their mothers!

Dean forces himself to adopt an air of nonchalance, like he isn’t fazed by the suddenly carnal instinct glowing in the familiar’s silver eyes.

“So…you can talk, huh?” he says casually. “Would’ve been helpful to know when you strung me up by my bootstraps last time we met.”

Roman tilts his head curiously.

“Do you not remember me?” says Dean, finding himself reading the gigantic familiar as easily as if he’d just come out and asked him ‘ _who the hell are you?_ ’

Roman doesn’t blink. Just watches Dean carefully.

“I broke in a while ago. Tried to ransack the place and kill your master-“

Seth clears his throat loudly then, and Dean glances over to see him discreetly giving him a gesture that meant ‘ _stop talking, for the love of god, stop talking’_.

“Uh…what I meant to say was…I accidently set off the trap outside your door. Yeah, got lost and was trying to find somewhere I could ask for directions,” says Dean, and it’s not at all a convincing lie, but it seems to satiate Roman, so he goes with it.

“So you talk,” Dean says again. “Got anything to say about that?”

Roman blinks slowly.

Dean shrugs. “Anything at all?”

Once again, Roman doesn’t respond.

Dean shakes his head. “You’re a weird one, brother.”

Almost like a light going off in his head, Roman perks up, straightening to his full height and rumbles, “… _brother_ …”

His voice is and isn’t like what Dean expected. It’s deep and rumbling like thunder rolling through balmy summer air. There’s hardly any echo, it’s just loud and _there_. Dean imagines that a voice like that would carry pretty well, it’s just that Roman is trying to use his ‘inside voice’.

“Yeah,” says Dean, more confidently this time. “Brother.”

He gestures over his shoulder at Seth. “How about Seth?”

Roman follows his gesture and lifts his eyes to gaze at the wizard scribbling away on his desk.

“ _Familiars…don’t have family,”_ he rumbles, looking less intense and more wistful. Wanting. _“But,”_ he continues slowly, “ _Yes. Seth is my brother.”_

Roman turns his eyes to Dean then. “ _You got brothers?”_

Dean shrugs, shakes his head. “Nah. Was never much for family myself. Had a friend back at the Guild, but that was years ago. Don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. Hell, don’t even know if he’s still alive. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was pushing up daisies now; he was just the kind of guy to never last long, the way he was living.”

He sighs.

“Guess that goes for me too.”

Roman eyes him with a curious gaze. “ _Now I see why Seth likes you,”_ he says, face like stone, but with a smug shine in his eyes, “ _wild things were always his specialty.”_

 

 

Seth is a dangerous man.

Maybe not so much in the way Dean was, rather, he was a glutton for danger. He liked to tempt the fates.

Made perfect sense now why he’d picked the witch hunter town to make his temporary home at. He wanted to toe the line between danger and outright stupidity for the fun of it.

“Not even animals are stupid enough to try this,” mutters Dean.

Seth smiles, sliding his spoils into a place he’d cleared on the shelf. He’d just come back from terrorizing the small town and had stolen some religious trinket forged from gold and garnet. Needless to say when the townspeople found it missing, they would definitely be ready to burst a fucking blood vessel. “You misunderstand the ‘wild things’ deal. When I say ‘wild things’ I don’t mean literally mean animals. ‘Wild things’ means everything that cannot be contained. The wind, instinct, those kinds of things.”

“Is instinct just another way of saying ‘stupid’, because that’s a lot less words and sugar to coat it,” deadpans Dean. Seth just laughs.

“I’m serious,” Dean insists over Seth’s peals of laughter. “What sense does it make to spit in Death’s face?”

Seth snorts. “Since when does the daring thief care about spitting in Death’s face? If I recall, isn’t that part of your job description? I thought you were supposed to be reckless free spirit?”

“I’m a lot of things, but I like to think that stupid isn’t one of them. I know what I can handle and I know what I can’t. That’s why I’m still here.”

The playful teasing in Seth’s voice is suddenly gone. “Yes and yet you still think you can handle me. You’re such a hypocrite.”

Dean throws his arms into the air. “Again with this? Is this the danger you’re talking about? Your stubborn ass and massive ego getting us into trouble? Because this is hardly what I’d call ‘in over my head’. If anything, it’s your massive fucking ego that’s the real danger. Who deliberately pisses off the kind of people who are literally born to kill you?”

“If you don’t like it, you can always leave,” says Seth. “It’s not like I never told you this kind of thing wasn’t for you.”

“You _fucking_ -“ Dean stops himself, feels his blood boiling and the urge to break the skin of his knuckles against something. Obviously, he wasn’t getting anywhere with Seth, and fighting a wizard, no matter how stupid he may be and how mad Dean might be, was not a good idea.

“You know what? Fuck you,” Dean growls.

He can feel Seth’s eyes on him all the way past the waterfall.

He needs a fucking drink.

 

 

The town is called Salem’s End, which is kind of ironic and equal parts fitting.

There’s a hole in the wall tavern called the Gods’ Garden, and Dean nearly rolls his eyes at it all. the only drink they sell in casks is wine and some beer, and if Dean owned this bar, he would never have the nerve to legitimately call that weak water and sauce slop ‘beer’. It would take ten mugs of that piss to even get a good buzz going!

But beggars can’t be choosers, and seeing as how it was the only bar in town, Dean gladly accepted any alcohol that came his way. By the time he stumbled back beyond the trees to the waterfall, the sun was set to rise. He was kind of relieved to find that Seth hadn’t locked him out after their spat and wondered where he was. The place was void of any signs of life as far as Dean could see. Even Kevin, who ran around the ankles of anyone who entered, had seemed to disappear.

“Roman,” Dean called out into the dark.

Nothing happened.

Maybe he only answered to Seth.

“ _Looks like he was right,”_ came the unmistakable rumbling voice. A cold breeze dragged its fingers down Dean’s spine as Roman materialized behind him. “ _You did come back.”_

Dean turns to face him, grinning sourly. “You guys bettin’ on me leaving?”

“ _I thought you were as good as gone, but Seth was sure you’d come back. He knows your type too well.”_

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? And what ‘type’ is that?”

Roman’s mouth tilts upwards in a sly, knowing grin. “ _Impulsive. Impassioned. Stubborn,”_ Dean glares at him, “ _too tightly bound to people you love.”_

“A wild thing,” supplies Dean.

_“You’re catching on.”_

Dean glares at the giant familiar for a moment longer, then shrugs, plops down on the floor and leans against the cool wet walls. “Can’t be nothing I’m not.”

The spray of the waterfall splashes gratefully across Dean’s skin. He can already feel himself relaxing.

“ _You’re right. But you smell like a bar and you’ve been missing for almost three hours. I’m guessing you’ve finally encountered something that you can’t handle_ ,” says Roman. “ _Or rather, someone_.”

Dean blinks placidly at the wall of water crashing down in front of him.

“He’s really fucking dumb, y’know?” he says. He shakes his head. “And really annoying.”

He looks to see Roman’s reaction, but Roman is silent, so Dean continues.

“I don’t care about people. I don’t get attached. That’s just not something I do. That’s not how you survive. So how come when I meet this big fucking idiot every rule I’ve ever had just goes right out the fucking window?”

Roman’s silver eyes don’t give away any of what the giant is thinking. Even his voice is solid slate.

“ _Don’t hold it against him. He’s simply acting the way he was born. Recklessness is in his blood, which I’m sure you can relate to some degree._ _You and Seth are more alike than you’d like to admit,” he says. “I’ve heard him say the same thing lots of times. The man you killed a month ago, that was his father. When Seth was a kid, he was sent to live with the Horsewomen to learn how to control his power. He was…”_ Roman trails off, searching for the words to use. “… _Volatile. A good kid, but no easier to tame than it is to catch the wind. His father had hoped he’d learn some self control while training with the Horsewomen, but we all know how well that turned out_.” There’s a ghost of a smile on Roman’s face. Kind of reminds Dean of an older brother talking about his younger sibling.

_“Seth eventually did learn self control, but it was forced on him. He…prefers not to talk about it.”_

Dean watched Roman’s face twist uncomfortably, as though remembering the moment it happened. His brow furrowed suddenly, a thought hitting him.

“I thought Seth was a wizard of the wild? How are you supposed to tame what can’t be tamed?”

“ _That_ ,” says Roman, his mind suddenly preoccupied with something else, “ _is not my story to tell, and Seth would probably say it’s none of your business. And to be honest, I hope you never find yourself in a position where you find out. You seem like a likeable guy; I’d hate for something bad to happen to you.”_

Dean resists the urge to roll his eyes –seriously, again with this?- as Roman suddenly disappears further into the dark behind them. Suddenly, the entire area feels alive again.

Seth is awake.

Almost as if he knew he was being talked about, he materializes from the shadows, looking just as sleepy and soft around the edges as Dean remembers him being the first time they met. Same annoyed look on his face, barely concealed and turned directly on Dean.

Dean finds it easier to grin at him without malice now that’s he’s got some semblance of alcohol in him, and forces himself to go the extra mile and give Seth a toothy smile.

“Hey, princess. Miss me?”

 


	3. wild

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casually trying to stuff a novel's worth of lore and world-building into a single chapter. still not quite satisfied with this one, but its been fifty years and i still can't force it to work, so...enjoy?

wild

 

 

“You smell like a bar.”

Dean gives Seth a mockingly sweet smile. “Why do you think that is?”

Seth doesn’t look very happy. Dean simply shrugs.

“Don’t tell me you waited up for me.”

Seth turns his back on him and pads further into the cave. “No. I knew you’d come back eventually. Even wild things have hearts.”

Dean is glad that Seth can’t see him. After all this time, he’d kind of hoped that Seth would stop treating him like a test subject. He always seems to know what Dean’s thinking, not because he knows _him_ , but because he knows his _type_. He’s no closer to being Seth’s friend than he is touching the sky.

He hasn’t realized he’s been standing by the lip of the cave still until Seth turns slowly and look at him from further inside. He’s got the look of someone trying to work their mouth around a bitter apology. Dean wonders if he looks miserable enough to warrant an apology from Seth, who is just as stubborn as he is. Then he wonders why he cares; not like he’d been very good at racking up friends in the first place, let alone apologies. Being around Seth has made him soft.

He scowls at the thought. Hadn’t he just told Roman that it wasn’t fair how Seth had obliterated the man he used to be?

Seth blinks then, and looks away. He sighs, sounds tired and reluctant. “If you’re gonna do that again –storm off in a rage and then disappear- at least be back before midnight,” he says.

Dean snorts. “What, I have a curfew now? Like some kid?”

Seth glares at him now. “Obviously, if you’re going to be doing god knows what out there until dawn. I mean, what were you thinking?”

Dean stalks toward him, feels the warm buzz of alcohol suddenly morph into fire in his veins. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need you to tell me how to survive; I’ve been doing that for years on my own. You think I need _you_ to protect me?”

Seth’s eyes flash and for a moment, Dean thinks that he’s about to relive the previous night’s screaming match. Then Seth…deflates. Any fire that he’d had swelling inside of him disappears suddenly. “No,” he says, “I just…there’s something out there, Dean. I can feel it. It’s been following us since the Town of Kings. I didn’t want to say anything because I thought I could handle it, but that’s not an option anymore. It’s bad. Like, ‘hunt you down and kill you’ bad. And it’s close. Almost breathing down our necks. I’ve dealt with creatures like this,” he smiles bitterly, “Tons. Don’t need to explain to you the finer points of fucking shit up, do I? ‘Kill or be killed’ and all that.”

Seth’s eyes have a cloudy glaze over them, like a bad memory is playing behind them. He blinks them clear, shakes his head, snaps out of it. “Look, just…I want…” he stops, struggling with his words. Dean just knows how expectant he looks, and he’s kind of disgusted with how badly he wants to hear just a few certain words.

“Be careful,” Seth sighs. “Please. I can’t stop this one. Not this time.”

It’s kind of sappy, kind of mysterious, kind of bullshit, but Seth may as well have just told Dean that he felt the same way about Dean as Dean felt about him: warm, tingly, and kind of annoyed by it. It’s not like Dean at all –story of his fucking life at the moment. Already way out character, he shakes his head and makes a decision right then and there. He sees himself reaching out, wrapping his hand around the back of Seth’s neck –he smirks a little at the way he immediately tenses- sends a prayer to whoever was listening and smashes his lips against Seth’s.

He kisses Seth right there, hard and slow, thumb tucked under his jaw. Seth is still so tensed against him, probably braced for Dean clock him in the face for even insinuating that he couldn’t fend for himself. By the time he kisses back, Dean is already pulling away –trying to- but he doesn’t get far. Seth grabs his upper arm to hold him in place and reattaches their mouths.

“Don’t move,” he pants, and Dean can’t help the laughter that bubbles between their lips.

“Idiot,” he mutters, but he stays put and shuts up, because, really, he’s waited too long to screw this up. He kisses him and its tongue and the occasional sting of teeth, and one hand in Seth’s hair and the other around his waist. Dean pushes against Seth, trying to get impossibly closer, only succeeds in nearly sending them sprawling to the floor, if only Seth hadn’t caught them by taking a step back. Dean doesn’t let go, just continues to walk them backwards until Seth’s back hits a wall. It’s some small wonder that they didn’t trip over any of the shit that littered the floors at all times; that would have been a mood killer.

Seth’s wearing a loose black shirt, the one with the long sleeves and doesn’t do much to boast his figure. It’s the one he sleeps in, the one that smells like him, soft and warm and vaguely of almonds. Dean doesn’t really care for it, but he knows its Seth’s favorite, so he’s careful with the fabric when he tugs on it, trying to work it up Seth’s body and over his head.

He carelessly tosses the shirt aside, then his hands are back braced against Seth’s chest, planting him against the wall. Seth gives a sharp little intake of breath and swears past Dean’s lips when his bare skin meets the cool stone of the wall, and Dean laughs. Almost as a consolation, he slips his hands behind Seth’s shoulderblades and moves his mouth to the juncture between his neck and shoulder.

“You know,” Seth says, sounding breathless and strangled, “I do have a bedroom we could be doing this in… Instead of against the wall…like animals…”

Dean breathes out a laugh against Seth’s skin and pitches his hips forward against Seth’s. “Aren’t you the one who’s always going on about wild things?”

But he lets go of Seth long enough for him to grab his arm and bustle them into a door in the rock –it was one of the odd things about Seth’s moving lair: no matter where they ended up, there were always doors leading to other places stuck in walls of rock and dirt that didn’t seem to have anything behind them.

In all his time being there, Dean had never been in Seth’s room. He knew he had to sleep, knew he’d been sleeping somewhere, but he’d never actually seen where he slept and when. He doesn’t have much time to look around though, and it’s not like he’s more preoccupied with Seth’s private living arrangements than with Seth himself. How could he be when Seth is shoving him backwards against his bed, looking wrecked and breathless –Dean grins to himself: just like a wild thing- and practically toppling over Dean when he wraps his legs around his waist, dragging him down on top of him. Seth braces himself over Dean with his hands on either side of his head, and he’s so close that he could kiss him, but for some reason, he doesn’t. He hesitates.

His brown eyes flicker back and forth across Dean’s face, like he’s trying to find something hidden behind hid features. Then he says, voice breathless and ragged, “I want…”

Dean nods. “Yeah. I know,” and grabs either side of Seth’s face to pull him in to kiss him, but Seth stops him, wrapping his hands around Dean’s wrists and resting his forehead against Dean’s. “No. I want…fuck, we can’t…”

“Hey,” says Dean, and he’s surprised by the softness of his own voice. “Don’t worry about it.”

He’s not exactly sure what ‘it’ is, but he needs to say something to keep Seth from freaking out. He can feel him tensing up over him. “If we’re gonna go out, I wanna go out like this, y’know?”

Seth halfheartedly grins besides himself. “Fucking a wizard in a cave?”

“You got any better ideas?”

Seth snorts, shaking his head. “How fucking romantic.” The smile fades away, leaving Seth looking frustrated and confused. “I don’t want this to be it. I wanna find a way to stop it.”

“We’ll be fine,” murmurs Dean. “You and me? There’s no way in hell a couple of stubborn bastards like us are gonna go down easy.”

The smile returns, quieter this time. “You keep being nice to me, I’m gonna start thinking maybe you aren’t actually a total asshole.”

Dean grins. “My reputation is tarnished,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

 

 

Dean wakes up first.

He’s kind of reluctant to open his eyes –he’s never fallen asleep in a bed this soft, and his body is none too keen on letting him ruin the first easy sleep he’s had in a while. So he lies there for a moment, half buried under the blankets and quilts that smell just like Seth and something else that he can’t quite describe other than ‘home’. It’s nice.

Dean stares up at the ceiling, breathing in through this nose and out through his mouth. It’s quiet, can’t even hear the waterfall outside. Next to him, though, he can hear Seth’s easy breathing. Dean thinks back to the time he met Seth at the river, thinks of how at peace he looked then. He hadn’t been sleeping then, and now that he was, that peace looked…distorted somehow. He didn’t look pained or scared, his face was as placid as quiet water. But his hands betray him; they’re shaking.

Dean pulls the blankets up further around Seth’s shoulders. No matter how furnished it looked on the outside, they were still sleeping in a cave behind a waterfall. It was still cool and wet and Seth had gone to sleep without anything on (which was mostly Dean’s fault as he had taken it upon himself to personally see to that fact). Made sense that he was freezing.

The rugs staunch the chill of the stone floor as Dean swings his legs out of bed and onto the ground. He finds his pants and slips them on, leaving the room without his shirt. He kind of liked the brisk chill of the cave. Made him feel more aware, more alive. He finds himself back at the opening of the cave, watching the world through the water. Of course they’d slept past sunrise. From the looks of it, it was already noon.

_“You’d do well to watch your back.”_

Dean blinks placidly, shrugs. “First thing you learn in life. Preaching to the choir, Rome.”

The familiar materializes next to him, silver moon eyes gazing out past the waterfall as well. Dean’s gotten used to the guy popping up out of nowhere, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever quite get used to the man himself.

“Do you know what’s out there?” Dean asks him.

Roman blinks slowly, quietly. “ _No. But that is not what I was referring to.”_

Dean finally turns his eyes to him. The familiar stands statue still, the epitome of dark summer storm clouds and thunder. Something’s bothering him, and Dean gets the feeling that if Roman’s worried, then they should all be too.

“ _Be mindful of Seth_ ,” says Roman eventually. “ _Something’s changed. I can’t say what without giving too much away. He trusts you, sure, but with this, I’m not so certain_.”

Dean frowns. “Got something to do with whatever’s out there following us?”

Roman doesn’t so much as wince, but his voice comes out tight and thin. “ _That, and…concerning last night’s events…”_

Dean quirks a knowing eyebrow. He can’t even find it in himself to be ashamed. “So you were there, huh? Knew I wasn’t crazy; thought I felt eyes everywhere. Creep.”

“ _More so heard, rather than seen_ ,” says Roman, the sudden inflection of tone of voice not lost on Dean. So familiars could get flustered.  
“ _And it’s my job to look after Seth and his home. I investigated. You’ll forgive me if I heard you and thought he was being attacked_.”

Dean snorts. “It was hardly that loud.”

“ _Kind of hard to hear over your own moaning, isn’t it?”_

Dean grins at the familiar. “I see why Seth likes you,” he mutters. “Assholes have to help assholes, right?”

“ _You’d know all about that wouldn’t you_?”

Dean shakes his head, laughing. Roman smiles, and for a minute, everything is fine.

 

 

Seth is awake when Dean returns to his room.

He’s sitting on the end of the bed, hands curled into claws on his knees. Even from the doorway, Dean can see how tense his shoulders are. His hands are still shaking.

“Hey,” he calls. Seth lifts his head and meets Dean’s eyes. There’s something off about them, but Dean can’t quite put his finger on it. “You okay?”

Seth looks at him for a long time without answering. Dean’s never shied away from a gaze before, but being stared down by Seth’s odd eyes is enough to make him want to keep his distance.

Roman was right. Something had changed.

“Yeah,” Seth says eventually. His voice is rough and gravelly, like it’s been used to the point of becoming a hoarse whisper. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

A fucking lie, and Dean knows it, but he won’t push it. Not with Seth looking at him with those weird ass eyes. He nods. “Hungry?”

Seth shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay.”

Dean doesn’t really know what to say, which is a first for him. He’s usually pretty quick on his feet and with his wits, but now, standing in front of Seth who was clearly shaken up bad, he had no idea what to say. Even less what to do.

Thankfully, Seth starts talking again, tells him what to do. “I wanna run.”

Dean’s eyes drift to Seth hands –still shaking- and then to his body –still tense- and then to his eyes. He nods. It was better than nothing.

“Yeah. Yeah okay.”

 

 

The field near the waterfall is usually peaceful. The breeze is playful and ever-present, rustling through the tall grasses and wildflowers, and the air and sky is clean and pure.

If Dean had been there by himself, it would’ve felt as though nothing had changed. The minute he turned Seth loose into the grass, it was almost as if the world had turned tense. The grass moved stiffly and the sky seemed dull, not nearly as clear as it should’ve been. The breeze usually whistled. Now it whispered.

Dean stood in the grass, hands curled tight at his sides.

Seth is somewhere out there. He has yet to find him; he knows he’s there because he can hear him, hear the grass rustled loudly as he runs through it, hears Kevin barking.

But its not a playful barking. It sounds…wary, standoffish, the way he’d bark at a stranger. Dean whistles at him, tries to encourage him to come back. Kevin growls and keeps barking. The grass shifts.

Then Kevin is running.

At first Dean thinks it’s some animal, maybe a mole or a snake or something, and hopes that Kevin didn’t get himself bitten. But then, he sees it: a dark shape in the tall grass tearing after the dog and gaining. It’s too big to be an animal…

“Shit.”

All manner of curses rocket out of Dean’s mouth as he break into a run. The grass scratches at his arms as he wades through it, threatening to tangle his ankles and legs and send him sprawling. He was having this much trouble; the only reason Kevin and his chaser weren’t was because they were made for this.

“Kevin, here!”

All of the noise suddenly veers towards Dean. The tinkling of Kevin’s collar- the little makeshift one that Seth had made for him- comes closer and closer until Dean can finally see the little tawny colored animal racing through the grass. Dean reaches out, scoops him up, and barely has time to throw himself out of the way of the other creature barreling through the grass.

His ankle twists with the sudden pivot and he hits the ground, Kevin scrabbling against his chest. He lands hard on his back, the air knocking out of his lungs so quickly that it stings, and in his peripheral vision he can see the black shape roll through the grass and over onto its hands, ready to start the chase again. Golden eyes land on Dean, and instinct and reflexes are the only thing that saves the thief from getting his throat clawed out. He kicks his leg up and foot catches Seth hard in the chest, both of them grunting at the sudden impact. Dean shoves with all his strength and knocks Seth back into the grass, rolls with the motion up and onto his feet. Seth is already starting to sit up, so Dean throws himself onto his hips, pinning him to the ground. Kevin is barking at the two of them a little ways away.

Dean can hardly hear him over the sound of Seth struggling underneath him. He hisses as Seth’s nails graze across his cheek, already feels blood welling up from underneath the broken skin. Dodging another swipe, he makes a grab at Seth’s wrist and pins it to the grass. It’s more than a little worrying that Seth is strong enough now to keep nearly breaking out of Dean’s hold.  
“Seth!”

Seth ignores the sound of his name, almost like Dean had never said anything in the first place. Despite being pinned to the ground, Seth continues to thrash. The noises he makes don’t even sound remotely human.

“Seth!” Dean shouts over him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? _Snap out of it_!”

Seth stills enough to make eye contact, locks eyes with Dean for a split second, long enough for Dean to see that this –this creature with golden eyes and dark hair tangling wildly about its face- is not Seth.

His stomach drops.

“ _Roman_!”

It’s the only thing Dean can think of. He doesn’t even know if the familiar can hear them out here, if he’ll even answer to Dean.

He’s panicking. He can’t stop Seth; doesn’t even know where to begin. He can’t do this alone. Seth was supposed to be the one with the answers, the know-it-all smartass that filled in where Dean was missing. He wasn’t like this just this morning. What had changed? What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

Seth twists his body underneath Dean, trying to pry himself out of his grip. Dean, preoccupied by panic, feels his fingers slip from around Seth’s wrist, and immediately makes a decision.

He punches Seth.

He puts all his strength behind it, leaning into each blow, and hits Seth once, twice, three times.

The third time, he hesitates, watching Seth’s eyes screw shut for a brief moment, hissing in pain, and then turn his head to gaze up at Dean. He blinks, brow furrowed in confusion, and Dean’s resolve crumbles a little at how lost he looks.

“…Dean?”

His eyes are still a sick golden color. Dean bites down on his lip and deals the final blow to Seth’s head. The force of the beating sends Seth’s head whipping to the side, and then he’s still. 

Dean hovers over him, one hand curled against his chest and the other keeping him braced upright on the ground, still wrapped around Seth’s left wrist. Closing his eyes, he squeezes it, almost reassuringly despite Seth being unable to respond.

God, he’s gonna have an awful bruise later.

Something shuffles to Dean’s left and instantly he’s on high alert again until he sees what it is.

It’s only Kevin, shifting from one little paw to the other in anticipation. Dean relaxes, breathing out heavily. This was too much.

“You okay, little buddy? Did he scare you?”

Kevin sniffs.

Dean sighs. "Yeah. Me too."

Crawling off of Seth, he flops down in the grass, trying to get his breathing under some semblance of control, and absentmindedly reaches up and presses his palm to the stinging wound on the side of his face. His fingers come back red and wet with blood.

“Great.” Dean glances down at Kevin, who is still looking up at him, tiny body shaking in excitement. “Think I’ll turn into a werewolf?” he asks him. “That’s how these things work, right?”

Kevin blinks in response.

Dean sits there for a few more moments, then rolls to his feet. He hoists Seth into his arms, trying to support his deadweight with both arms, and whistles to Kevin. It’s a slow walk back to the waterfall.

 

 

Dean calls for Roman the moment he sets foot beyond the water.

Almost immediately, the familiar is by his side, practically dragging Dean along to Seth’s room. He hasn’t quite materialized; still a shadowy vaguely man-shaped figure with two silver eyes that look slate hard and somehow cool under pressure. He looks staticky around the edges, like an afterimage is following him around. Dean wonders if it’s the only way the familiar can let on that he’s frustrated or worried. He’s certainly not very at good at showing it on his face.

“What’s happening?” Dean demands. He knows he’s in no position to be demanding things from a familiar, especially one that isn’t his and could probably snap him like a twig if he pissed him off enough, but damn it, he’d just punched someone unconscious to save himself –someone he actually really liked, no less- and he wanted to know why he’d been made to.

Of course, he gets no answer. Roman wholly ignores him while he whispers back and forth around the room grabbing things off of shelves and laying them by Seth’s bedside. He twists open a vial and dribbles the contents over his fingers, dabs those to the lacerations on Seth’s cheek. Those have already started to swell, turning purple and angry red. Dean hadn’t realized he’d hit him that hard, honestly, and feels kind of sick about it.

At least when Seth woke up, he’d be able to tell Dean ‘he told him so’ about the whole ‘being out of his depth’ thing. He’d never admit it out loud –certainly not to Seth- but he’d never been as helpless as he’d been trying to fend off Seth’s rage. He’d dealt with crazed men before, but crazed was not the same as feral. This was a different kind of monster.

Roman turns Seth onto his side, once again ignoring Dean’s queries as to why, and tears the back of Seth’s shirt. It isn’t until this moment, that he realizes how sharp Roman’s nails are -like animal claws, dark and pointed like knives, and poised over Seth’s skin.

“Wait, what are you-“

Carefully, Roman slides his thumbnail through Seth’s skin, opening up rivulets of blood as he carves something directly under the tattoos. As sick as it is, there’s a morbid curiosity in watching the meticulous symbol work being scratched into Seth’s spine. Roman is careful, but quick, and when its done, he cleans away the blood, moves Seth onto his back and smooths his hair out of his face.

“What did you do?” says Dean.

Roman sets to work putting things back where they belong, and actually bothers to answer Dean this time.

_“Stabilizing. By the time he wakes up, he should be back to normal.”_

Dean folded his arms across his chest. “So talk. Start from the beginning. Why is this happening?”

Roman’s silver eyes fall on Dean, and for a long time, he is still. Dean is starting to wonder if Roman is debating whether or not to just eat him right now and cut their losses. There’s no way he doesn’t blame some of this catastrophe on him.

“ _Fine_ ,” says Roman after an agonizing staredown. He finishes his work and then takes a sentinel-esque position next to Seth’s bed. “ _I’ll start from the beginning_.”

Dean blinks, surprised at how easily Roman complied, and then looks around. Eventually, he just plops down cross-legged on the floor amidst the rugs. He’s got a feeling this might take a while.

“ _Seth’s mother was the daughter of the king. She was raised to become the next ruler since her older brother –the original heir to the throne- disappeared. She married the right hand of the king, and became queen while her new husband took the throne. By then, the last Great War was coming to a close thanks to the Horsewomen’s combined efforts. When Seth was born, his father had already been outed from the throne and the High Council had begun its reign. Seth’s birth was…complicated. He was born of an unnatural mix of magic and nature, bred for the sole purpose of becoming the weapon that would dissolve the High Council that the Horsewomen had created._ ”

Dean’s brow furrowed. “I thought he was raised by the Horsewomen. His parents sent him there, didn’t they? Because they couldn’t control him.” That left a bitter taste in his mouth.

_“Initially, the Horsewomen had let Seth’s father leave on peaceful terms. He could become the leader of the Town of Kings, where the old kingdom had been, if he gave up the throne peacefully. For a while, he let them believe that he had done just that. He kept to himself, didn’t cause any trouble but it was just a way to buy time, time to create the perfect weapon to take back the kingdom that had been stolen from him.”_

Dean’s head is starting to spin. It wasn’t every day that you found out that the person sitting next to you was part of some huge conspiracy to take down the government.

“So he raises the kid to be his weapon, realizes he can’t control him, and hands him over to the people he doesn’t even like? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Roman’s face doesn’t betray his thoughts, but Dean can hear the strain in his voice. “ _He thought that Seth would lose control of his powers and decimate the Horsewomen then. They ended up training him instead, probably thought the former king was trying to make peace by letting them see to the upbringing of his child. And even if he didn’t go berserk, his father thought the training would pay off in the future. No sense in putting all this work into something just to have it disobey you in the end. At least when the Horsewomen were gone, he’d still be able to control Seth_.”

“So the Horsewomen train him, then fall apart,” supplies Dean. “Guessing it had something to do with him?”

Roman is quiet, seeming to mull over his words. “ _Not exactly. Ten years after Seth was sent to the Horsewomen, their leader Charlotte believed that she was the strongest of the five and tried to kill the others. She thought she could rule the world_.”

Dean remembered this. He’d been seventeen at the time, preoccupied with his status as one of the best in the Guild, but he remembered the day he’d heard that Paige had died engaging Charlotte, while the others were left to take the rouge witch down.

_“She killed Seth’s mentor and crippled the Horsewomen. It took the combined efforts of the remaining Horsewomen to stop Charlotte. Seth escaped, turned his back on the life he’d lived before so as not to alert Charlotte. He’s been moving from place to place to cover his tracks. Becky is said to be raising an army in the east, training new mages to take down Charlotte. Sasha and Bayley are doing the best they can to keep the High Council intact. As for the witch of light herself, no one knows where she is. I’d be willing to bet she’s trying to find a way to take over the Council again.”_

“Okay, so before all that. How did the Horsewomen get Seth’s powers under control?”

Roman nods at him. “ _You’ve seen the tattoos on his back, I’m sure_.”

“Magic?”

_“Yes. It’s cruel, really. The tattoos are a seal. Without them, he’d be next to impossible to control. The magic that courses through Seth is…well, wild. It was meant for destruction. It took the power of a mage of light to quell that destruction.”_

Dean shakes his head. “Charlotte.”

“ _Yes_.”

“Go fucking figure. But isn’t that a good thing? I saw what happened to Seth; don’t we want to prevent that? How strong is Seth anyway?”

 _“Yes. But the seal is a binder. Whoever creates it, controls the power its supposed to seal.”_ Roman gives Dean a long suffering look then. “ _And as to how strong Seth is, use your imagination. It took the single most powerful witches in the world to get his power under control, after all.”_

Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust. “So even with his deadbeat parents gone, Seth’s still just somebody else’s puppet? That’s fucked up.”

Dean’s never been much for following orders himself; living your entire life the way someone else wanted you to? He probably would’ve gone insane.

“So, I’m gonna go on a hunch and say that what happened earlier was the seal coming apart?”

 _“The beginnings of it, yes. I was attempting to stabilize them earlier, but even that is only temporary. Charlotte is slightly stronger than I am.”_ Roman’s eyes flicker in annoyance. “ _Slightly_.”

Dean leans back on his hands, glaring up at the ceiling. Things were starting to make sense: the close proximity of whatever was following them, the sudden berserker attitude, it made too much sense. After years of running, it’d finally caught up with Seth.

“It’s her, isn’t it?’ says Dean. “She’s looking for him. She’s gonna use him to kill the other Horsewomen.”

Roman turns his gaze to Seth. “ _I believe it is_.”

Dean sets his jaw and nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Alright. So what do we do?” He looks to the familiar for an answer, but Roman seems lost in thought, boring holes into the side of Seth’s head. His jaw ticks, and something akin to frustration sketches lines across his normally stoic face.

_“I don’t know.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> local asexual can't write a sex scene to save her life, so just use your imagination.


	4. it changes when the sun goes down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *emerges from the void*  
> hello enjoy

 

it changes when the sun goes down

 

 

Seth wakes with a start, which he immediately regrets when his head begins throbbing in steady tempo with his heartbeat. It felt like he’d been dropped on his head more than once, and then been left on the cold ground.

When he tries to sit up, the room spins, and suddenly his back is burning with sharp pain following right along his spine. Movement makes his skin stretch and pull against what he assumes is now dried blood, and only when he stills long enough to let the room stop whirling, does he realize where he is.

A room.

Meaning, he wasn’t outside anymore.

Seth can’t really remember much past the night before. Everything was hazy, like he was trapped in a bad hangover. Vaguely, he remembers being outside for a little while. He remembers the sky and the grass tugging at his clothes. He remembers hearing Kevin, not actually seeing him, hearing him barking as though something was frightening him. Then he remembers looking up and seeing Dean, seeing his face glistening with sweat, blue eyes hard and edged with worry.

Seth winces involuntarily. That memory makes his head hurt.

He reaches up and runs his fingers over the top of his spine near his shoulder blades.

Sure enough, something’s been carved over the ink there. Blood comes flaking off as he touches it, and Seth frowns. He thinks he understands now. The haziness, the scars; it makes sense now.

He knows its Roman when he hears the rustling whisper of the familiar’s magic to his left. No doubt, he’d probably been watching over him the entire time, had been the one to stabilize the magic in his seal.

“The spell came apart, didn’t it?”

Roman gives Seth a slight nod. The wizard frowns, nibbling almost worriedly on his lip.

“It’s Charlotte.” He doesn’t need to ask. He already knows its his former teacher trying to break the seal she herself placed on him. Seth’s eyes trail towards the wooden door lodged into the rock wall, out to the room beyond.

“I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?”

He hates how small he sounds, can feel Roman’s eyes turning soft on him.

 _“No. You did well; Paige would have been proud of her little troublemaker_ ,” said the familiar, hiding a smile behind his eyes. Seth gives Roman a withering look, looking for all the world like an abashed teenager.

“I’m not thirteen anymore, Roman,” he mutters at the use of his old nickname. His expression softened into something more sentimental then. “But…thank you.”

He looked around, only then noticing how quiet it was. “Where’s Dean?”

_“After seeing you in your unleashed state, he was…understandably shaken. He’s outside. I sense he’s not left the perimeter spells yet.”_

Seth exhaled the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Okay. Okay,” he ran his hands over his face and tried to get his thoughts together.

 _“If you’re thinking of relocating, I’d tell you it’s a futile effort, but I trust you know that already,”_ said Roman _. “Charlotte has your scent by now. It won’t do any good to run from her; she’ll be quicker about finding you than she was before.”_

Seth leaned back on his hands and glared at the ceiling. He hated being backed into a corner. “What do you suggest we do then? I would gladly rip that bitch’s heart right out of her chest, but you and I both know that I’m no better than an animal without the seal. If I fight her and she breaks the seal…”

“ _We could move you to a secluded location_ ,” offered Roman.

Seth shook his head. “How long before I’d get out? The minute I come across something –wandering merchants, small villages- I’ll go berserk.”

_“I’ll watch over you.”_

Seth smirked at the gray stone ceiling and shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d sooner die than watch me turn into some kind of monster.”

“Is that humor? You know that if I die, you will die as well. That’s the agreement of familiars.”

Seth shakes his head. “I know...” he idly tapped his foot against the floor in thought. “What about a binding spell? We could bind her powers to a certain word or phrase…like the magicians did in the battle with the demon Kane. They bound his powers to the 19th day of May so that he’d stay asleep for 364 days.”

 _“That’s an old and forbidden magic_ ,” warned Roman. “ _You don’t know how to cast the spell. Not even Paige would teach you that, as wild as she was. Even she had morals.”_

Seth raised his hands in placation. “It was just a suggestion. You’re right; I don’t know the spell and no one ever taught me them. It’s just…there’s got to be some other way. I don’t like being out of options.”

Roman was silent, silver eyes shut in deep thought. He wasn’t much different from Seth; a warrior familiar, he wasn’t one to take defeat lightly. That was probably why he and Seth had gotten along as well as they had all these years; both of them were too stubborn to die. But even he knew that sacrificing one to save millions was how battles were won.

“Do you trust me?”

Roman’s eyes snapped open at the quiet question. Seth wasn’t looking at him. He was still looking at the ceiling, and Roman was instantly uneasy.

_“Of course I do.”_

Seth smiled faintly. “I’ll fight her,” he said. “I’ll kill her. And when I do, I need you to get in close and subdue me. Just for a little while,” he added hurriedly, when he felt the anxiety coming off the familiar in waves. “Just long enough for you to put the seal back in place.” He was still smiling.

Roman’s eyes clouded in confusion. “ _Seth…if you kill her, the seal will have no one to bind with. It won’t work. I wouldn’t be able to put the seal back in place_.”

Seth shakes his head, and if Roman had a stomach, he was pretty sure it would’ve dropped.

“No, you wouldn’t, at least not right away. It will take some time, but I know you’ll figure it out. You’ve been haunting the old libraries for years; you’ll know where to look to find a spell to stop me. It’s not really fair of me to ask this of you, I know. But when you figure out how to stop me, whenever that is, or how long that may take, I want you to wake me up and…” Seth finally turns to look at his familiar. He looks tired, exhausted beyond his twenty years. “And then I want you to forgive me for putting you through all of this.”

“ _Seth_ ,” Roman’s voice doesn’t waver, but Seth has known the dark familiar his entire life. He knows that Roman, strong and resilient like a summer storm, is just as scared as he is. “ _Searching for a way to keep your powers in check….that could take years. It won’t be an easy wait; it could take decades, centuries, even-“_

Seth nods. “I know. But Roman, at the risk of sounding like a coddling mother and sappy as hell,” Seth rolls his eyes with a grin, “you’re my familiar. You’ve been more like a family to me than my own parents. I owe a lot to you for watching my back and making sure I don’t do anything stupid, being by side while I grew up as a weapon and being there still when I became my own person. But more than that, you’re my friend. My _best_ friend. Which is why I’m not worried about how long it’ll take, because I know that even if it takes centuries, you’ll still be there to wake me up.”

Roman’s form flickers, the only slip in his mysterious and oddly expressionless façade. For a long time, his silver eyes never leave Seth’s face, like he could change the wizard’s mind if he stared at him for long enough, pushing his own thoughts into Seth’s head. In his eyes, though Seth was already twenty years old, he was still the same after all these years. His eyes were different since they’d first met, he’d seen more, lived through worse. But for all the world, Roman could not forget the little kid, snaggletoothed and with a mischevious sparkle in his dark eyes, that had found him in the stairwells of the Horsewomen’s keep all those years ago. He still saw Seth as that little kid, and he would damn sure give his all to protect him.

Roman nodded slow and deep, steeling himself together with his newfound resolve. He would save Seth. He would save him from the demon that had been forced into him. He would save his little brother, his best friend, no matter what it took.

“ _I will be there_ ,” he said. “ _I promise_.”

 

 

 

Dean fucking hates this place.

The wine is piss poor, the beer is even worse, but he needs to get a buzz going, so Gods’ Garden it was. The awful little holier-than-thou tavern was as quiet and stagnant as a graveyard, and any piece of skirt that happened to give him more than a second’s glance was either a little on the old side or just too plain to bear. It wasn’t like Dean was there to fuck anyway, just needed to get his mind of off a certain wizard he’d stupidly fallen in love with.

Yeah, Seth had warned him, told him he was in over his head that Dean could hear him in his subconscious over the measly alcohol buzz humming lukewarm in his head. Dean’s pride and perpetual stubbornness wouldn’t let him admit it though. To be concise, it wasn’t Seth that he was scared of. He’d seen brown eyes full of a fondness directed solely at him before he’d seen the cold golden glow of the monster that lurked below Seth’s skin, and he knew for fucking certain that he’d rather die before he gave up on seeing those warm brown eyes filled with laughter again.

 He would never admit it, never in a thousand years, but losing Seth was what scared him the most. If Charlotte had her way, she would take him from Dean. She would turn him into the monster that Seth’s father had always wanted. If she got her claws in him, Seth as Dean knew him would be gone for good.

Dean shakes his head, like that might shake loose the fears lodged deep in his mind. No, he couldn’t do this; he needed to think, needed to come up with a plan. He’d never once had anything good in his life, and he was damn sure not going to give up the one thing he wanted the most in this world. Freedom didn’t mean a thing if he spent the rest of his life living with the weight of regret sunk deep in his chest at not fighting for every good thing he’d finally torn from life’s cruel grasp. If Charlotte wanted a fight, it was going to be the last thing she ever got.

Dean is so lost in trying to clear the poor excuse of a buzz in his head that he doesn’t notice the figure next to him until she speaks.

“Got a lot on your mind?”

Dean can’t really see what she looks like for the dark hood pulled over her head, but he can see hair that shimmers like spring blossoms peeking out in shy curls from underneath. She’s smiling coyly, like she thinks it’s a funny thing to find Dean here. The thief narrows his eyes slightly. Even half-drunk, he’s sure he doesn’t recognize her. She’s not like any of the girls he’s fucked in alleyways outside of bars after a good score, she’s too…clean for that. She’s got a voice like honey, skin like satin. She kind of smells smoky sweet, a scent with a name that’s just on the tip of his tongue, that he could only think up in his wildest dreams.

For some reason, he thinks of Seth.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he drawls, “do I know you?”

“Doubt it. But I think we might be mutual friends of the same person,” says the woman. Dean still can’t see her eyes underneath that hood, and it’s starting to unnerve him. If she happened to be an assassin –or, more likely, the friend of a jilted lover Dean once knew- she could easily be trying to lure him into a false sense of security, only to stick a knife in him right here at the bar. She wouldn’t be the first woman to try.

“Oh yeah?” Dean replies carefully. “Got a name?”

The woman smiles. “It’ll be the witching hour soon,” she says in a low voice, “Not safe. You should be getting home now, don’t you think?”

Dean shakes his head, raises his half-finished glass of beer to his lips. “I don’t believe in all that shit.”

“Oh, really? Odd words coming from a man who reeks of magic.”

Dean tenses immediately on his bar stool. “Listen, lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I hear this town is full of witch hunters; ain’t exactly the type of place to be running your mouth about magic and spells and shit.”

“Says you. Yet here you are, and here I am,” says the woman easily. She still smiling, like this all a game. “You’ve got the scent of a witch on you. Either you are one, or you’ve been near one.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve got a talent for this kind of thing. Now, what’s say we go and meet this witch?”

Dean looks at her for a long time, playing up the idea that he can barely see her through his alcohol buzz. He still knows fuck-all about this woman, and whether she was a witch or a witch hunter, she meant bad news if she ever found her way to Seth. She was petite enough for Dean to handle on his own if she tried to get rowdy, and he knew how to lose somebody in a crowd if she tried to tail him. Those were last resort options though. He at least had to make her leave before he tried to fight or flight.

“You sure you’re not hammered, sweetheart? I keep telling you, this isn’t the type of place to be making up stories like that-“

“I can help you,” says the woman abruptly. She’s stopped smiling, and though Dean still can’t see, he knows her eyes have stopped sparkling. She’s all business now.

“I can help you,” she says again. “If you take me to him, I can help.”

Dean looks at her clearly now, the act completely gone. Did she…just say that she could help Seth?

“Who…who are you?”

The woman glances over her shoulder and then takes Dean’s forearm, reaches for his glass of beer in the same motion and downs the last of it in one graceful swallow.

“Come on,” she says, sliding off of her barstool, “we’ve got to hurry. It’s almost time.”

“Time for what?” says Dean, trying to pull himself out of her grasp, but finding it next to impossible to do so. For such a petite woman, she certainly had a vice grip.

“Charlotte’s close,” says the woman, pulling Dean through the bar and out onto the moonlit street. There, she finally lets him go and Dean notices that she’s almost trotting to keep up with him. “And we’ve got maybe half an hour before the witching hour. We’ll need to finish this before then.”

“You keep saying that; what’s the witching hour?”

“The hour of the morning when a witch is at her strongest. In the thirteen minutes between the beginning and the end, the witch is at her weakest. Witch hunters like to strike at that time,” said the woman. “We’ve got to get to Seth to a safe location before the thirteen minutes begin so we can dodge the hunters. From there, we help him as best we can before Charlotte finds him.”

The urgency of the situation makes Dean’s head spin. “You know Seth. You must be…”

“A friend,” she answers immediately. “I’ve known him for a long time; I’ve been looking for him since he disappeared so that I could protect him.” She looks back at Dean. “I know who you are. And I know you care about him too, which is why we have to hurry.”

By the time they reach the edge of town, Dean has already taken it upon himself to lead the way.

“You’re sure you know the way?” asks the woman. “You’re drunk.”

Dean snorts. “I’m not drunk; I can’t be, that shit’s like water. And we’re looking out for a waterfall.”

It only occurs to Dean then that the woman might not be able to get past Roman’s spell traps. From the way she spoke, it was obvious that she was a witch; Dean hoped it wouldn’t be a problem for her to disable them. And if she knew Seth, then surely that meant that she knew Roman. Maybe he wouldn’t eat her.

Maybe.

The moon looms over the tops of the trees, silver light dappling from between the branches and spotting along the forest floor. It’s faint, but up ahead, Dean can hear the distinct sound of water that he’s become so accustomed to.

“There,” he says. “It’s close. We’re not too far now.”

By now, they’re running through the woods. Dean can barely hear the crunching of their footsteps over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. They had to make it in time. They had to…

“Wait, stop!”

Suddenly, Dean’s on his back on the ground, head spinning. The witch…she’d pushed him, but why? The groaning creak of wood sounds loud and sharp overhead as a haphazard row of trees bend at the middle of their trunks and crash to the ground. The cuts are clean, like they’d been sawed through with an extremely sharp blade.

The witch rolls off of Dean’s chest, and swears quietly.

“You’ve always been good at running away, haven’t you?” says a voice crisp and sharp like crystal. Dean sits up, propping himself on his elbows as he tries to get his bearings. In a beam of moonlight stood a woman in a blue cloak sparkling with diamonds and snow white downy feathers. Rivers of blonde hair fell over her shoulders like spun gold framing eyes that looked like they’d been carved from a block of ice. She would’ve been beautiful if it weren’t for the cold evil smile dancing across her lips.

Dean’s never seen her before, but he knows somehow, that the woman standing in front of him is the same witch Seth had spent his life running from. Now, face to face with Charlotte, his blood boils like molten iron. He was going to make her suffer for what she’d done to Seth.

The witch next to him stands, and he can feel magic roiling from her very being in waves. It’s so intense that its hard not to bend underneath the power of it all. And if that was Charlotte, then the woman beside him must be…

_No way._

“Get out of my way, Charlotte.”

Charlotte smiles serenely. “And where are you off to in such a hurry, Sasha?”

Her secret out, the witch of dreams pulled the hood of her cloak back from her face, eyes in full view of Charlotte, brimming with venom. Dean had never seen eyes like hers, dark and full of stars as silver and bright as the night sky above them now, the type of eyes that cried comets and blinked stardust from the eyelashes.

“Don’t worry about where I’m going. You’ve found me,” said Sasha, “so let’s settle this.”

Charlotte sneered. “Oh, Sasha, you know as well as I do that it won’t be much of a fight. If I rememeber correctly, it took the remaining three of you to stop me the first time, and you still couldn’t get the job done.” She shrugged mockingly then.

“It can’t be helped. I’m just too powerful for mere apprentices to handle.”

Sasha bristled. “I’m not an apprentice, Charlotte. I’m one of the Horsewomen, the single greatest coven of high witches the world has ever known. You’d do well not to forget that.”

“I'll do my best. You aren’t the one I’m looking for, though. You’re punishment is coming soon enough, don’t you worry; but I’ve got business to attend to,” says Charlotte, turning her back on Sasha and Dean. “You remember our boy Seth, don’t you, Sasha? I know he's around here somewhere. Could that have been where you were headed?" Charlotte sighed, pacing leisurely. "He could’ve been the greatest wizard of our lifetime, if you had only let me train him. Paige only hindered him. Reduced him to a scared child, ashamed of his powers.”

“You would’ve used him as a weapon!” Sasha growled. “The Horsewomen ended the Last Great War. We came together to protect the people of this land; you would’ve used his powers to frighten and terrorize. Even our enemies wouldn’t deserve the chaos of Seth’s power; what he would do to them…it’s inhuman!”

“You’re soft, Sasha,” Charlotte sighed. “Your enemies will never learn if you show them mercy. That is why you will never beat me.”

Charlotte was fast, almost inhumanly so. Pivoting on her heel, she waved her arm in a vicious swipe, and suddenly light rained down like archer’s arrows –were they arrows? Arrows made of light?

Sasha lifted her hand as if to shield herself from them and the arrows bounced harmlessly off of an invisible barrier. Dean had never seen two witches fight before, and if this was what they could do during their weakest points, he shuddered to think what they could do at full strength.

It was astonishing.

Sasha’s barrier shimmered softly in the moonlight as it became visible and broke apart with the sound of shattering glass. With a flourish, she hurled the shards with frightening speed towards Charlotte. Most of them either missed their mark or didn’t even hit her as Charlotte disappeared with a spin of her blue cloak. Just as she was vanishing, one of the shards tore through the fabric, slicing the hem clean in two. She reappeared, kneeling a few feet away from where she’d originally been standing, looking annoyed with the situation.

“You’re starting to piss me off, Sasha,” she growled.

Sasha grinned. “Apologies, but I couldn’t give a shit.”

 Each strike of the witch’s’ arcane armories was like a thunderclap. More than that, Dean had never seen physical battle magic before, watching pieces of glassy-looking shields break apart and lightning manifest from seemingly nowhere. It was like watching two armies battle, despite there only being two people. He’d never seen someone fight so fiercely.

He supposed it came from some deep-seated hatred that he’d only witnessed the tip of the metaphorical knife of.

Still, they were running out of time. They wouldn’t make it with Charlotte in between them and the waterfall.

“Sasha!” Dean hated to distract her, but they would never make it in time if she kept this up with Charlotte. “We have to lose her!”

Sasha’s eyes flickered to him, and Dean saw supernovas burning to life inside them. She nodded, turning back to her stalemate with Charlotte, reaching out a hand to Dean, the other holding Charlotte’s magic at bay. He hesitantly stepped forward and took it, not quite understanding what was about to happen, and suddenly the world folded in around them.

 

 

 

Dean is falling the next time he opens his eyes.

Not to his death, no, but to the ground.

The sound of a body hitting the hard forest floor next to him jolts his memory.

Sasha.

Looking over, he sees her struggling to her elbows, violet hair out of place and haphazardly falling around her face.

“You okay?” he asks, reaching out to help her. She accepts his help with a shaky hand, her breathing labored.

“I’ll be fine,” she pants. They sit on the ground in the shadow of the trees while they catch their breath, leaning back against the trunk to rest. Sasha screws her eyes shut and growls softly.

“That bitch,” she hisses. “I can’t believe I let her push me to my limits during the Thirteen. I felt it when we started, but I still let her goad me into it.”

“You were fighting pretty hard,” shrugs Dean. “Think it slowed her down, at least?”

“She’s strong, but she’s still human. She’ll have to wait until the hour begins before she’s at full strength again. Bad news is, so will I.”

Dean sighs and looked up at the sky peeking through the blanket of tree branches above. “So we have to be careful if we’re gonna get back to the waterfall. Where are we anyway?”

He could still hear the waterfall, only barely, so that must mean that they were still on the right track.

“We’re still close enough that we could make it, but close enough that Charlotte’s still in the area,” said Sasha. “We’ll need to hurry. Just because she’s weak now doesn’t mean she won’t be waiting for us when we get there. I can give us cover from her for a few minutes, but once the spell wears off, she’ll be able to find us exactly.”

Sasha reached up and pulled a single strand of hair from her head. She whispered into her cupped hands, reciting what sounded like a spell in some ancient language and then gently blew it into the breeze. Before their eyes, a figure took shape in the moonlight, an identical copy of Sasha herself standing in front of them.

She nodded to the copy, and it turned and disappeared into the night. Sasha exhaled tiredly and stood with Dean’s help. “We’ve got five minutes,” she said. “Let’s make them count.”

 

 

 

The copy was doing a good job of keeping Charlotte busy. The sound of the waterfall was steadily getting closer and closer, a small beacon of hope; maybe they would make it in time.

“She’s close,” Sasha said.

Dean nods. “We’re almost there. Can you really help Seth?”

“I can. I know the spell. It’s a forbidden spell, only meant for witches of light,” Sasha glanced sidelong at Dean, hinting the irony of the situation, “it’ll seal his powers so that he can never use them again. I’ll bind them to you and-“

“Wait, no.” Dean comes to an immediate halt, the implications of what Sasha was saying dawning on him fully. “I’m not letting that happen. No one’s going to use Seth again. Not you, not me, not Charlotte.”

“Would you rather he die then?” snapped Sasha. “Because that’s the only way to stop his powers for good. As much as I hate to admit it, I won't be able to stop Charlotte by myself. If she releases the seal now, our best hope is that Seth kills her in his rage and I bind the powers to you instead. He trusts you; he knows you would never use them against him.”

“I…” Dean trails off, feeling lost and frustrated and just….goddamn it all.

His one hope for saving Seth was out the window, meant that he would still have to live his life as someone’s puppet. He couldn’t…

“Dean, this is the way it has to be,” Sasha says slowly, carefully. “Seth…he wasn’t meant to be here. He wasn’t meant to be made for this very reason. He was doomed to suffer his whole life from the beginning. This is all we can do.”

Dean shakes his head. “Just…stop. He’s not a mistake. Don’t talk about him like he’s someone’s mess you have to clean up.”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” says Sasha gently. “But, for all intents and purposes, he is. He wasn’t supposed to be born. People like him were never supposed to be made. It just causes too much chaos. We should’ve killed him and his parents when we had the chance, but we thought…I thought that maybe we could save him. That we could train the weapon out of him.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “That’s the problem. Everyone kept treating him like a thing and not a person.” He knew that feeling, people treating you like this and that but never really like you mattered. They wanted to make you into what they wanted you to be, no matter how good their intentions seemed to be. They were selfish people.

This was their fault.

Sasha’s eyes flashed then. Frantically, she looked up at the moon in the sky then down at her hands.

“Shit,” she swore. “It’s started. Dean, come on!”

She grabbed his arm and turned to run, but it was already too late.

Just beyond the trees, close enough to feel the echoes rattling through their bones, an anguished scream cut through the night air, long and terrible. It had been human, pure and pained, and then it pitched into something feral, something animal and wild, like some sort of hellhound howling into the night.

Dean already knew. He’d failed.

_“Seth…”_

The witching hour had begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jackknifes into the void*  
> goodbye  
> reach me here or here: neonflavored.tumblr.com/


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